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Title details for Shark Drunk by Morten Stroksnes - Available

Shark Drunk

The Art of Catching a Large Shark from a Tiny Rubber Dinghy in a Big Ocean

by Morten Stroksnes
P.J. Ochlan
Audiobook
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A salty story of friendship, adventure, and the explosive life that teems beneath the ocean
 
The Lofoten archipelago, just North of the Arctic Circle, is a place of unsurpassed beauty—the skyline spikes with dramatic peaks; the radiant greens and purples of the Northern Lights follow summers where the sun never sets. It’s a place of small villages, where the art of fishing, though evolving, is still practiced in traditional ways.
Beneath the great depths surrounding these islands lurks the infamous Greenland shark. At twenty-four feet in length and weighing more than a ton, it is truly a beast to behold. But the shark is not known just for its size: Its meat contains a toxin that, when consumed, has been known to make people drunk and hallucinatory. Shark Drunk is the true story of two friends, the author and the eccentric artist Hugo Aasjord, as they embark on a wild pursuit of the famed creature—all from a tiny rubber boat.
Together they tackle existential questions and encounter the world’s most powerful maelstrom as they attempt to understand the ocean from every possible angle, drawing on poetry, science, history, ecology, mythology, and their own—sometimes intoxicated—observations, meanwhile pursuing the elusive Greenland shark. By turns thrilling, wise, and hilarious, Shark Drunk is a celebration of adventure, marine life, and, above all, friendship.
Winner of the Norwegian Brage Prize 2015
Winner of the Norwegian Critics’ Prize for Literature 2015
Winner of the Norwegian Reine Ord Prize at Lofoten International Literature Festival 2016

  • Creators

  • Publisher

  • Release date

    June 27, 2017

  • Formats

    • OverDrive Listen audiobook

      • ISBN: 9781524781385
      • File size: 296637 KB
      • Duration: 10:17:59

  • Languages

    • English

  • Reviews

    • AudioFile Magazine
      P.J. Ochlan conveys the author's awe at rarely seen orcas and transparent sea creatures. There isn't much demand for Greenland shark meat; the flesh toxins can make eaters drunk or even kill them. Thus, no one's been fishing for them for a half-century. Still, Norwegian Morten Stroksnes and his friend, Hugo, will attempt to catch one. Narrator Ochlan infuses the translated account with cheerfulness and expresses fascination with Norway's "underwater Serengeti." The hunt is often a waiting game; calm seas are needed to catch a shark. That leaves room for ruminations on topics such as ancient images of sea monsters and mermaids and the realization that life began at sea, along with glimpses of life in a fishing village. J.A.S. © AudioFile 2017, Portland, Maine
    • Publisher's Weekly

      Starred review from April 10, 2017
      An epic fishing trip reels in fascinating sea lore in this briny eco-adventure. Norwegian journalist Strøksnes recounts his sporadic, year-long quest with artist pal Hugo Aasjord to catch a Greenland shark, a huge creature. Many specimens are blind from eye-worms and spectacularly long-lived (one clocked in at 400 years old). Their flesh contains a toxin that renders those who eat it “shark drunk”: incoherent, hallucinatory, unsteady on their feet. Baiting their hooks with shark delicacies such as rotting beef and cod liver, Strøksnes and Aasjord pass long days with nary a strike while they weather storms and view stunning scenery in Norway’s Lofoten archipelago, vividly rendered by Strøksnes’s prose in Nunnally’s vigorous translation. (“The sun isn’t visible to us, but it casts its light around and in between the rain... like gigantic spotlights slowly sweeping across the surface of the water.”) Meanwhile, the author ponders everything related to the ocean, including bizarre luminous squids of the inky depths, frolicking orca pods and sperm whales, ancient disquisitions on maritime monsters, flinty islanders who live off the sea, and the close, testy relationships between fishing friends. Strøksnes’s erudition, salty humor, and unfussy prose yield a fresh, engrossing natural history.

Formats

  • OverDrive Listen audiobook

subjects

Languages

  • English

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